The sixth annual Bangor Area Homeless Shelter Hike for Homeless Awareness is coming right up.

In fact, BAHS program manager Mike Andrick will lead a contingent of 20 committed community volunteers who will climb the Saddle Trail on Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park on Saturday, Aug. 4.

Helping support this fund-raiser are corporate co-sponsors Trans-Tech Industries Inc. of Brewer and the Bangor Daily News, with additional support coming from WABI-TV, Channel 5.

“We’ve already received close to $2,000 in pledges,” said BAHS executive director Dennis Marble, “and our goal, this year, is to raise $10,000, which would be $3,000 more than our best year ever.”

The purpose of the hike, Andrick said, “is to raise awareness and funds for the shelter.

“Specifically, we don’t receive any state or federal monies to support our day program,” which is an integral part of the overall work of the shelter.

“It’s imperative to get out and raise money and awareness,” Andrick added, “and we do that in the summertime because, even though many people are on vacation and enjoying themselves, homelessness is still a social problem in the summertime.

“Actually, our numbers are quite high in the summer, with more transient and migrant workers, and more and more working poor.”

Even more to the point, Marble said that federal and state funds cover only 41 percent of the cost of operating BAHS.

“Efforts like this help meet more than half our needs.”

You still have time to make a pledge or donation to the Hike for Homeless Awareness.

Make checks out to the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter and mail them to BAHS, P.O. Box 1754, Bangor 04402-1754.

For further information on this fund-raiser, or about the work of BAHS, call 947-0045.

One of the nicer aspects of writing a story about someone doing something special is that often you hear of others doing something similar.

I recently wrote about a recent Bangor High School graduate who is now a member of the Peace Corps, and was pleased to hear from two people that another BHS grad is performing the same service.

Not only did I hear from Terra Curtis of Bangor, writing about a neighbor, but I also heard from Patti Lane of Bangor, who wrote me about that same individual, who happens to be her niece!

Lane wrote that BHS and Haverford College graduate Kate Comeau left in early July for a two-year commitment with the Peace Corps in Madagascar.

Comeau, who studied in Spain for one year, majored in Spanish and minored in education while in college in Haverford, Pa.

Lane explained that her niece will live with a host family “in a Madagese village for three months,” to help familiarize herself with local customs and the language before being assigned placement on the island, which is 250 miles off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean.

This U.S. Peace Corps volunteer will be working among a population that has just a 50 percent literacy rate.

According to Lane, Comeau plans to initiate a “worldwide school” program with a Bangor middle school, hoping “that her involvement with a Bangor school, although from afar, will encourage students” in Madagascar to aim high and realize they can make a difference in the world.

“Being away from her family and friends will be difficult,” Lane wrote, “but for those who know Kate, she will give it her all.”

Lane added that her niece would “love to hear from folks” back home.

Mail should be addressed to Sr. Kate Comeau/PCT, Peace Corps, B.P. 620, Antananrivo 101, Madagascar, AIRMAIL VIA PARIS.

Lane added that the cost for a 1-ounce letter is 80 cents, and the mailing time is approximately two weeks.

And I would also like to extend my heartiest congratulations to Brewer native Colley Johnson, who is advertising and marketing coordinator for the Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C.

Johnson recently completed one of the five AIDSRides conducted throughout the United States this year, in which more than 10,000 cyclists are working to raise more than $15 million for AIDS-related services.

Johnson participated in the Washington, D.C., AIDSRide from North Carolina to the nation’s capital.

She had to raise $2,400 to participate in the 330-mile fund-raiser.

Although Johnson encountered some difficulty with dehydration, she wrote her parents, Mike and Mary Ellen Johnson of Brewer, that adrenaline often got her over the rough spots, and that she found the medical crew accompanying the riders most helpful, especially when the heat really got to her and she needed their assistance.

Covering a variety of terrain in heat and torrential downpours, she felt not only a great measure of relief, but also a real sense of accomplishment as she biked the final mile along Constitution Avenue, ending in a sea of red victory T-shirts in front of the U.S. Capitol building.

Johnson wrote that, at that moment, she realized “the tears, the frustration, the training and the fund raising” were worth every effort she put into this grueling fund-raiser.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.